Abstract

The photovoltaic solar energy is comprised of many engineering disciplines. Geotechnical engineering is one of those disciplines in which it has important functions in the solar photovoltaic technology and particularly for large scale projects which usually employed in open areas such as parks or deserts. The aim of this paper is to present in depth the role of the geotechnical engineering in the solar photovoltaic energy and clarifying the common challenges facing this technology in arid climate regions. It is found that the lack of specialised codes and specifications that needed for foundation design and in selecting the proper foundation types. This would significantly affect the development of this technology in terms of efficiency and performance of the proposed solar photovoltaic systems. The hot weather climate and induced stresses by wind speed are also critical issues that should be considered. In order to avoid the uncertainty of data such as soil properties, the use of numerical modelling techniques is an effective method to help determining the most proper parameters needed for design and analyse purposes.

Keywords

Solar photovoltaic; Geotechnical engineering; Foundation types; Numerical modelling

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